When a man is tired of pants, he is tired of life; for there is in pants all that life can afford.-A Webpage Devoted to Putting Pants on Famous Quotations*

I have finally panted my way across the the finish line in the one-woman race against logic. Yes, the 4-6 Hour pants project from Last-Minute Knitted Grifts is done. I didn't keep track of how many hours it took me to finish (who does that??). I do know that I cast on three weeks ago and didn't knit every day in that time frame. I figure I have at least 20 hours invested in the project.

Anyway, this is a good news story for you and for me. The good news for you is that after this post, you will waist no time further reading my crotchety tirades on the topic. The good news for me is that my family can now safely return home. I've missed them.

All that being said, before we get the final product, I'm gonna need to bitch just a little more. ::Remember, I said "after this post, you will waist no time further ..."::

The Finish Whine
First of all, I need to say that this is my maiden voyage in trying to explain a process through captioned photos. Secondly, I need to say that I am a person who is easily confused. In other words, my attempt did not go well.

The directions for finishing the waistband include the use of live stitches still on the needle, being joined to purl bumps (I keep wanting to call them Britney Bumps), previously marked with scrap yarn.

The following series of photos illustrate the process as described in the book. In the first picture I am supposed to slip one stitch off the knitting needle with a sewing needle which has been armed with a length of yarn that is three times the circumference of the waistband, which came out to 60 inches. Of yarn. Threaded through a sewing needle.

After I slip the stitch onto the sewing needle, I'm supposed to pick up the first bump, and join them together by pulling the 60 inches of thread through the stitch and the bump, all while holding the waistband down.











Once the stitch and the bump become one lump, you are supposed to pull the scrap yarn from the bump. For the record, I hadn't gotten that far in the above photo series.

Here's the boggler: That was just one stitch, which means there were 115 more stitches to go. Each requiring the same exact treatment, to be commenced after I cleared up the rat's nest left from the first one.

That's when I had an epiphany: This is some fucked-up repugnant shit.

So, after detangling the quagmire, I wrestled the once live and now dead stitch from Britney's first Bump, revived it with some mouth to mouth (which may have included a bit of Vanilla-Rum-and-Vernors-tainted drool, and put it back on the knitting needle.

Then I did something really crazy. I cast off all the stitches.

Here they are, being sewn to The Bumps. Quick and easy.



Here's a close-up of the final results. Ain't she purty?:



Now the burning question: What were the designers of this pattern thinking? Is the field of knit pattern design becoming the new playground for sick fucks who enjoy toying with the trusting knitter's sanity?

Now, the second burning question: How many of the 4-6 hours were assigned to this task?

I'm tellin' ya, if I would have had to endure 115 more experiences like I had with the first stitch, somebody woulda died.

And honestly, by this point in the post I had hoped to have some clever and witty observations. But I'm so over this pattern. And the topic. And I'm tired and had a bad work week past, and have a worse one coming. So with that, I introduce to you, the final product:



Oh Pants, thou art sick! The invisible worm That flies in the night, in the howling storm Has found out thy seams Of crimson joy. And with his dark secret love, does thy thread destroy. -Same Website

*I had no idea there is an internet subculture devoted to replacing key words in quotations with the word "pants." The quotes at the above-linked website are pretty stupid at first glance, but by the time I finished the list, I was giggling through tears. Okay, maybe that was the stress crying. I had a bad day at work on Friday. I can't write about it, of course. And there's probably more waiting for me tomorrow. So you go hug somebody. I got a knitting book to burn.

Labels: When Knitting You is Hurting Me